


We'd Light This Place Up

by redrobinfection (ChristmasRivers)



Series: JayTim Week 2017 [7]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, Explosions, Fireworks, JayTim Week, M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 02:48:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11660037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChristmasRivers/pseuds/redrobinfection
Summary: Red Hood and Red Robin are on the job again, out to stop another dastardly criminal organization from blowing up its own secret base and destroying all the evidence with it, but just as Hood finds the bomb - a bomb hecan’tdisarm for once - he loses contact with Red. Can you blame him if he panics?





	We'd Light This Place Up

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt fill for the seventh day of the tumblr JayTim Week 2017 - ~~Gotham Tourist Season~~ | Fireworks. It’s funny, this is the last prompt but this is actually the first fill I wrote out. It broke a long streak of writer's block I’d been struggling with for half a year. I certainly enjoyed letting loose and spitting this out; I hope you enjoy reading it just as much as I enjoyed writing it ;3
> 
> (Edit 2018-07-01: newly edited for 2018 :3)

“Red? Red Robin, you there?” Red Hood called as he whipped his head around wildly, scanning the narrow passage winding through the innards of the dilapidated building they had infiltrated earlier as if the act of scanning itself would make Red Robin appear.

“Red, if you can hear me, you need to get out now. I repeat, evacuate the building _now_.”

Nothing. Not even static.

Hood panted as the heat, exertion, and rising tendrils of panic all started to wear on him.

“Red, I dunno if you can hear any of this but I’ll say it one more time _evacuate immediately_. I foun-” he choked on the words, gasping for breath - “I found a bomb… in the basement...” He huffed a shaky laugh. “Or rather made out of the basement.”

Even faced with dire circumstances he couldn’t help but feel grudgingly impressed by the creativity of the supposed ‘bomb’ maker.

“Someone specially rigged the boiler system to blow. I couldn't….” - he choked again, swallowing before forcing the rest out - “I couldn’t disable it, Red. Please, you gotta… gotta get out…get out…”

He stumbled over debris, fumbling from one dark hallway to the next, fighting back still darker flashbacks as the ominous feeling of entrapment closed in on him.

“Red…Red…please… get out… get out now… hear me and get out… Red… please… Red…”

He eventually lost track of where he was, where he was going, and what he’d said - he was too trapped in the moment, in that familiar nightmare, until suddenly he wasn’t. Suddenly he was out in the open air of a back alley, the alley outside the building, and an instinctive urge to get to higher ground had him fumbling out his grappler before he realized what he was doing. He pulled himself to the safety of another building’s roof without a thought.

No sooner was he out of range than the nightmare he just left morphed into a different, related one. He could feel the heat on his back as the building burst like a firework, shooting fire, smoke and debris into the night sky. He kept moving, feeling nothing but heat - the phantom heat of another, long-past explosion - hearing nothing but the sound of brick and mortar and human endeavor ripping apart - the sound of a life crashing down around him - until suddenly he wasn’t moving and there was a different kind of heat ahead of him and another sound clamoring its way into his head.

“-”

“H—”

**“JASON!”**

All of a sudden he could hear his own voice over the diminishing roar of destruction behind him - repeating the same litany of _“get out get out get out please get out get out get out get out get out”_ over and over without pause. There were strong arms holding him in place, steady hands reaching up around his neck to confidently disable the latching system on his hood. There had been nothing wrong with his line of sight through the lenses, but he couldn’t seem to get his eyes to focus on the figure in front of him until the hands lifted the hood off his head. The face of Red Robin, cowl down, lips moving, registered just before sound of Red’s voice reached him.

 _“You’re out, you’re out, you’re good. You made it out,”_ those lips told him.

“Tim,” Hood croaked out, then cut off abruptly. That was the owner of the lips. Red Robin’s name. His _partner’s_ name.

“Jason!”

Jason. That’s right. That was _his_ name. He was Jason. He had been so out of it, so stuck inside his own nightmares, that he had barely even recognized his own damn name.

A cloud of smoke and dust passed over them as the wail of sirens started up in the distance. Red Robin - Tim - started to speak, but was cut off at intervals by hacking coughs.

“You’re - _cough_ \- good, you made it - _cough_ \- out-”

“Tim.” Jason’s shaking hands rose to cup Tim’s face.

“Yeah? Jason? Are you with me now-”

Tim cut off abruptly as Jason tugged him into his chest, fiercely repeating _“You got out, you got out, god you got out, thank fuck, oh god Tim”_ in a low tone.

“Ja- _cough_ -Jason! Hood! You’re gonna kill me yet if you don’t give me a chance to brea-”

Jason didn’t care, he crashed his lips over Tim’s without a moment’s thought - and by the way Tim kissed him back just as desperately, he didn’t think the other man needed to breathe as badly as he’d complained. The kiss only lasted seconds but their brief contact gave Jason the time and reassurance he needed to clear the worst of the panic from his head. They broke away from each other panting, Tim’s hands falling to his knees as he gasped for breath while Jason’s hands flew up into his sweat damp hair.

“Oh, man, Red, I was going crazy in there. I didn’t know if you could hear me; I didn’t know if you knew, or if you knew that I knew. Or if... shit, I didn’t know if you were looking for me…”

Tim nodded. “Yeah, I heard you. I heard all of it. My transponder was damaged in the fighting, so I received everything but I couldn’t transmit.” He shook his head, gulping down more air. “I… you had me worried, Jay. I almost went back in for you at the end. When I heard you unraveling like that…” He shook his head again, shuddering. “I know how it gets for you sometimes, remembering…”

_Remembering how I died._

Jason paused, while Tim's words sank in, but when he realized what Tim meant, he fucking _laughed out loud_. Tim jumped at the booming sound, tilting his head up to squint at the taller man until Jason literally dropped to his knees in front of him.

“Tim. _Babe_. I was going out of my mind in there imagining _you_ getting stuck in that, not me, not… Holy crap, just imagining _that_ happening to you…” Jason felt the lingering traces of panic stir at the mere mention of it. “Dammit, Red, I felt like a rat trapped in a maze, but you were the cheese at the end - you _are_ the cheese at the end - and I was so desperate… Red… _Tim_ …”

Jason jerked back as Tim suddenly crashed to his knees as well, relieved laughter coming out in croaks between coughs.

“And here - _cough_ \- I was, worried about... you” - more laughter, more coughing - “but you were - _cough -_ worrying about me worrying - _cough_ \- about you…”

Jason fought down a wry grin as he patted Tim on the back, attempting to soothe the bouts of coughing intermixed with delirious amusement. Amusement and _relief,_ he was certain - absolutely certain - because he felt the exact same way. Jason chuckled a few times himself. _It’s hard_ not _to feel giddy after dodging a bullet like that. Two bullets, and I think we’d both agree our own deaths would be the easier of the two.  
_

“What are we, even? Look at us, more worried about each other…” Tim trailed off, shaking his head as he beamed up at Jason through the grime and exhaustion. Jason shrugged and answered anyway.

“Idiots, probably. Two awesome-ass idiots.”

Tim barked a laugh and let Jason pull him to his feet. Together, they began a slow, hobbling retreat away from the billows of smoke and the storm of flashing lights emanating from the emergency vehicles responding to the scene of chaos below.

“Fair enough. Come on, Hood, let’s get back to my place before we explode any more buildings with our awesomeness.”

Jason grinned as he pulled his hood on once more. “Awesomeness? Really, if that was all it took, babe, you an’ me? We’d light this whole place up like fireworks.”

**Author's Note:**

> My DCU tumblr sideblog is [redrobinfection](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/). Read, reblog and like this work on tumblr [here](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/post/163616813331/wed-light-this-place-up). Thanks for reading!


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